I was just in a small town in Kentucky for a book signing and visited a few antique shops. I was shocked to find several items from my youth are now for sale as (gulp) antiques. I saw lunch boxes, a hair dryer, and memorabilia from TV shows. As I walked through with my friend who is under thirty, I hoped that my knees wouldn’t creak too much. I consider myself the poster child for “Age is Just a Number.” I don’t feel my age and I tend to hang with people twenty years younger. I listen to the current hits and can discuss pop culture like a reporter for TMZ. However, time does march on and I find myself reflecting on where I am in this life, what I’ve accomplished, and what is left to do. One thing is certain, I don’t want to stand still. I decided to pursue writing and publishing after age fifty. It was scary and still is; so much to learn, so many decisions to make, everybody offered advice, and most of the time, it was conflicting. I found that I loved the process, the thrill of immersing myself into something new. Along the…

People’s Top Five Reactions When They Learn I’m a Writer: Don’t write about me! When I say the words, “I’m an author,” some people act like I just pulled a weapon. They cringe away, saying, “Don’t put me in a book!” It makes me feel a bit like a personality-sucking vampire. Quickly, I assure them that I would never write about them. At this, they look a little offended. “Why not? What’s wrong with me? Am I not character-worthy?” That must be so much fun! It is! Sometimes! Okay, occasionally. Once in a while? Most of the time, it’s hard work and drudgery. The fun part is meeting readers and typing “the end” (figuratively, since I don’t actually type that. I think it’d be nice, though. I should start) and seeing my books at the store. The writing itself, though…that’s hard. Where do you get your ideas (don’t write about me!)? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m a seat-of-my-pants plotter, so the characters just kind of pop into my head fully formed, and the stories unfold as I write them. (And I won’t write about you—promise! Okay, now why are you looking all miffed?) You should write about… …this story or…

Is it safe to let characters loose in a new setting? That was the question we were asking ourselves when we contemplated the fifth book in our book collector mystery series. All the book collector mysteries are contemporary stories that also focus on one of the great authors of the Golden Age of Detection. We wanted to have the book revolve around Dashiell Hammett, an author who changed the face of mystery fiction. Hammett was himself quite a mysterious figure and had been a Pinkerton agent. What great training for a crime writer: not only did it require attention to detail, long reports, and thinking fast in surprising situations, but also it taught him that people could be very untrustworthy. He left some memorable fiction set in San Francisco, one of the world’s great cities. We love The Continental Op and Sam Spade and we think they still make good reading after many years. We thought that Hammett’s work and the city itself would be an excellent backdrop for our forthcoming book, THE HAMMETT HEX. We bundled up our characters, Jordan Bingham and Officer Tyler “Smiley” Dekker and sent them from sleepy little Harrison Falls, New York, to the romantic…

You’re walking down a street past an open window, and all of sudden, you’re in your grandmother’s house, a pot of her red sauce bubbling on the stove and the family gathered for Sunday dinner. You look around, startled—it’s Tuesday, your grandma’s long gone, and you’re hundreds of miles from your childhood home. But someone is stirring up memories, in the guise of marinara and fresh herbs. Or you’re sitting in a conference room. Others file in, and for no reason at all, you flash on your college boyfriend, a man you’ve barely thought of in thirty years. Only then do you realize someone in the room is wearing his cologne. Before your conscious brain even recognized the scent, and put it in context, your memory took you back. We’ve all had that experience. Turns out, our sense of smell is related to memory more closely than any other sense. Researchers have identified a physiologic reason for that connection. Smell is one of the oldest senses, and it’s located in the limbic system, the same part of our brain where memory resides. Our senses of touch, sight, and hearing are located in other regions, making their connection to memory less…

A cozy mystery, by nature, should always be a little scary. But can it be funny as well? Hey, I couldn’t help myself when I wrote CREPE FACTOR, the newest installment in my bestselling Scrapbooking Mystery series. The novel is set in New Orleans after all, a city that prides itself on being magical, crazy, and downright irreverent. So of course my plot enjoys a hearty wink and a nod from the infamous Big Easy. As do my characters. There’s Carmela, of course, my main character and scrapbook maven who owns Memory Mine Scrapbook Shop in the French Quarter. When she’s not arguing with her ex-husband Shamus Meechum (alias the rich rat) over doggy custody of Boo and Poobah, she’s chasing down bad guys, rushing out for oyster po-boys and beignets, worrying about keeping her figure and what New Orleans’ industrial strength humidity is doing to her hair, and being driven to distraction by the phony French Countess Saint-Marche who owns the glitzy shop Lucrezia next to hers. Add to this lethal mix Ms. Ava Gruiex, a self-proclaimed hoochie momma, wearer of all things leopard and leather, Botox fan, and owner of Juju Voodoo. Ava is Carmela’s best friend and…

I loved, loved, loved writing REMEMBER YESTERDAY, and one of the reasons is my hero, Tanner Callahan. He might just be one of my favorite heroes. Here’s why: He’s hot — and he knows it. Tanner is tall with long black hair that brushes up against his eyes. He has a six-pack, well-defined chest, and long ropey muscles. His uniform of choice is black thermal shirts and cargo pants, clothes that are just as appropriate for the science labs as well as the hoverpark. All the girls love him, and he’s more than happy to revel in their attention. Tanner is also seriously smart – like the one-hope-for-our-future smart. He was recruited to work in TechRA, the Technology Research Agency, when he was a kid as a result of his off-the-chart test scores. He’s also a super fast hoverboarder and can beat anyone in Eden City in wind sprints. And yet, he never performs tricks. Any tricks. He won’t go near the vert walls, and nobody is sure why. As Jessa says, “The problem with Tanner Callahan is that he always thinks he’s right. The bigger problem is that he usually is.” Despite his arrogance, though, Tanner is secretly afraid…